Amtrak Thruway Bus Ride San Francisco to Emeryville via Oakland Bay Bridge

This Amtrak thruway bus route connects downtown San Francisco with the railhead at Emeryville via the Oakland Bay Bridge.

The bus stop in San Francisco is located at 555 Mission Street, right in front of the Transbay Terminal. Reason for this arrangement is the refusal of Amtrak to pay the access fees
to use the modern facility. There is no service information provided at this bus stop, and the sign itself is very easy to miss. There is also no seating nor shelter provided for waiting passengers.

I learned the hard way never to use a Thruway bus again - on the day of filming the bus got caught in traffic during the Bay to Breakers fun run. A member of the group with whom I was also left stranded actually got someone from Amtrak on the phone and was told the California Zephyr - which we were all connecting to - would wait for us. This turned out to be a lie as the train left on time, despite eventually arriving in Chicago nearly 4 hours late. (See    • Amtrak California Zephyr in Illinois  ).

When the bus finally turned up nearly 2 hours late, another hour was lost stuck in traffic. We were placed onto the next Capital Corridor service to Sacramento and then thrown into an Uber as far as Reno where we beat the train by half an hour. All good, however I missed out on seeing the Sierra Nevada's by rail. A refund of $82 that I received cannot make up for that.

Hard lesson learned - make your own way to Emeryville, do not rely on this pathetic service. Better still take BART to Richmond Station and change there.